I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Thunderstorms contain ‘dark lightning,’ invisible pulses of powerful radiation.

Scientists recently discovered something mind-bending about lightning: Sometimes its flashes are invisible, just sudden pulses of unexpectedly powerful radiation. It’s what Joseph Dwyer, a lightning researcher at the Florida Institute of Technology, has termed dark lightning. Unknown to Franklin but now clear to a growing roster of lightning researchers and astronomers is that along with bright thunderbolts, thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays, a form of radiation normally associated with such cosmic spectacles as collapsing stars. The radiation in these invisible blasts can carry a million times as much energy as the radiation in visible lightning, but that energy dissipates quickly in all directions rather than remaining in a stiletto-like lightning bolt.

Dark lightning appears sometimes to compete with normal lightning as a way for thunderstorms to vent the electrical energy that gets pent up inside their roiling interiors, Dwyer says. Unlike with regular lightning, though, people struck by dark lightning, most likely while flying in an airplane, would not get hurt. But according to Dwyer’s calculations, they might receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body.

I wonder if the mechanism is related to that by which Scotch tape creates X-rays? Interestingly, pilots have reported all sorts of strange sights on the tops of thunderstorms that meteorologists for years pooh-poohed, but science keeps finding evidence that there really are weird things going on there.

ADVICE TO LAWYERS: Beware of clients who ask if your fee includes a bribe to the judge.

PROGRESSIVE RACISM: On this day in 1913, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson segregated the Civil Service. “Prior to the segregation of the civil service in 1913, appointments had been made solely on merit as indicated by the candidate’s performance on the civil-service examination. Thereafter, racial discrimination became the norm. Photographs came to be required at the time of application, and African-Americans knew they would not be hired. The existing work force was segregated. Many African-Americans were dismissed.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Make Skype Sex Less Awkward.

FASTER, PLEASE: Spleen-on-a-chip could treat bloodstream infections. Since I don’t have a spleen, this is of interest to me.

SCIENCE: While in womb, babies begin learning language from their mothers. “Babies only hours old are able to differentiate between sounds from their native language and a foreign language, scientists have discovered. The study indicates that babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb, earlier than previously thought. Sensory and brain mechanisms for hearing are developed at 30 weeks of gestational age, and the new study shows that unborn babies are listening to their mothers talk during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy and at birth can demonstrate what they’ve heard.” Of course, this may be one of those unreliable small-sample neuroscience studies we’ve been hearing about: “Forty infants, about 30 hours old and an even mix of girls and boys, were studied in Tacoma and Stockholm, Sweden.”

MEMORIES: When Sandra Day O’Connor lit into Walter Dellinger in Clinton v. Jones.

IS AMMUNITION THE NEXT BUBBLE? “Why the national shortage? Here’s my theory: Bullets are easy to store, non-perishable, and they hold their value or even increase in times of crisis. So they’re a lot like gold or any other commodity that has served as hard money through the ages. . . . With states like Connecticut and Colorado passing strict new restrictions on gun owners and the President flying around the country to drum up support for national gun control, ammo buyers are like consumers queuing for gas or loading up on gold in the inflationary 1970s. They’re creating their own shortage.”

UH OH: Wow, bombshell in McConnell bugging case. Progress Kentucky behind the recording?

Professor Jacobson observes: “This is the same Democratic PAC which ran racist ads against McConnell’s wife. . . . If this holds up, it is very, very big time, and on its face appears to be a violation of law.”

It’s certainly an indication that the Dems are revving up the dirty-tricks machine for 2014.

UPDATE: David Corn not talking.

SCIENCE: Reliability of Neuroscience Research Questioned.

New research has questioned the reliability of neuroscience studies, saying that conclusions could be misleading due to small sample sizes.

A team led by academics from the University of Bristol reviewed 48 articles on neuroscience meta-analysis which were published in 2011 and concluded that most had an average power of around 20 per cent – a finding which means the chance of the average study discovering the effect being investigated is only one in five.

The paper, being published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience today [10 April], reveals that small, low-powered studies are ‘endemic’ in neuroscience, producing unreliable research which is inefficient and wasteful.

It focuses on how low statistical power – caused by low sample size of studies, small effects being investigated, or both – can be misleading and produce more false scientific claims than high-powered studies.

It also illustrates how low power reduces a study’s ability to detect any effects, and shows that when discoveries are claimed, they are more likely to be false or misleading.

Caveat emptor.

AT AMAZON, deals galore at the Spring Outlet Event.

BILL WHITTLE: Afterburner: Reflections of Disaster.

DAVID FRENCH: Marry Young? Marry Old? Marry When You Have the Character to Marry. “You’re old enough to marry when you possess enough wisdom, character, and emotional maturity to recognize that you are no longer the center of the universe, and you can and should love another person more than you love yourself. There are 16-year-olds who understand this, and there are 60-year-olds who do not. But in this era of ever-longer childhoods (for some people, 24 is their grandfather’s 14), many of us are delaying the most basic elements of emotional maturity well past previous generations.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Bras make boobs saggier, study finds.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Men Don’t Want To Have Sex With Their Best Friends’ Wives.

MICHAEL BELFIORE: How To Build A Starship. Still putting the finishing touches on my Mannschenn Drive. With luck, it’ll be done last week.

DESIGN: At new Legoland Hotel in Carlsbad, some off-the-wall design.

IT’S NOT ANTHONY WIENER, BUT: Steve Cohen deletes flirty tweet to Cyndi Lauper. Really not much here, but this isn’t his first embarrassing Twitter story. Maybe Steve should lay off the Twitter for a while. . . .

SO IF YOU SEE A GUY WITH AN IMPROBABLY HOT WIFE, YOU’RE PROBABLY MISSING THE, UH, BIG PICTURE: Science proves women like men with bigger penises.

READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Jerry Moldenhauer recommends Titanic: Legacy of Betrayal.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: ACLU: IRS Says It Can Read Taxpayer Email Without a Warrant.

FORGET TEXTING: Study finds daydreaming the top cause of distracted driving accidents. “A study by the Erie Insurance company of the roughly 6,500 fatal accidents that occurred in 2010 and 2011 which involved distracted driving found that it wasn’t cell phones at texting that were mostly to blame, but simple daydreaming. According to police reports of the incidents, 62 percent of the accidents involved one or more drivers that were ‘lost in thought,’ compared to just 12 percent that were using a phone to text or make a call.”

The obvious solution: Ban thought!

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Meet the SWUGs of Yale: Women ‘Washed Up’ at 21. “Whatever empowerment we’re supposed to be deriving from this version of the feminist moment is looking pretty thin on the ground.”

WHY PEOPLE DON’T BEHAVE IN DISASTERS AS ELITES EXPECT: “Elite Panic.”

GARY LIBECAP: The Cap-And-Trade Bust.